Canadian Cynic

Bush administration pressures U.S. TV stations not to air Kerry ads

Unbelievable. Absolutely f$*%king unbelievable. An article in today's (Aug. 24) National Post newspaper (no obvious online link, sad to say) first shows a large color photo out of Crawford, Texas of Condolleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, George Dubya and Donald Rumsfeld (the four assholes of the apocalypse as I like to think of them), followed by a lengthy article which concludes as follows (typed in manually, so I'm hoping I get it right):

A CBS News poll last week showed the anti-Kerry ads were hurting the Democratic nominee. Since the ad began airing, Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush had opened a 55% to 37% lead over Mr. Kerry among veterans.

In an effort to offset the damage, Mr. Kerry aired three new ads in the past week defending his record and accusing Mr. Bush of being behind the attacks.

The Bush campaign has written to U.S. television stations asking them not to air the Kerry ad. "It is completely false and without any evidence that the Bush campaign supports a front group attacking John Kerry's military record,', as the Kerry campaign states," the letter said.

Now, read the highlighted part slowly -- the current president is using his presidential power to strong-arm TV stations into not running his opponent's ads. If that doesn't constitute a rampant abuse of presidential power, I have no idea what does.

It's even funnier, of course, that the Swift Boat Veterans for (so-called) Truth have been shamefully exposed as having numerous links to Bush and his braintrust, Karl Rove, and that their ad and their claims have been thoroughly eviscerated by numerous bloggers. In other words, when exactly did truth in advertising become such a big issue for George Dubya?

UPDATE: Josh Marshall puts another nail in the Bush administration's "Hey, we have nothing to do with those Swift Boat guys" BS story, pointing out that the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat liars share an election lawyer.

I'm sure it's just a remarkable coincidence.